Wow, $10k+ cables

ebm might be right. Best value Purist Audio cable is Neptune, $1900 retail for 1M pair RCA. You can never find used Neptune.
Anyway, that's wild capitalism, you charge as much as you can, maximize profit before other considerations. At least no one forces anyone to buy expensive cables, that's good.

I am afraid that would not be enough to get the very best. More like $15k.

You know, I got Tchernov Reference interconnects which are in essence high grade military cables. I also have Purist Neptune fluid and Wywires Platinum cables, and overall prefer them both to the Tchernov, though the Wywires and the Tchernov are close enough to each other, especially with analogue source. Best cables for NASA and military might not be best cables for music reproduction and maybe even recording. Signal transmission is a very complex thing,

jafant, there is still one advantage that the Tchernov has over the Wywires - it has a bit more of 'the power of delivery'. And possibly another advantage - slightly more high frequency extension. But overall, yes, I find Wywires Platinum more balanced and elegant. This is in all transistor system with analog sources, I can only speak of this particular set-up.
Both Wywires and Tchernov work great in a chain with Purist Neptune, you just have to figure out which one goes where.

No one seems to complain about $10k amps. What makes anyone think that designing great cable is easier and less time consuming than designing great amp ? Production cost is less, I suppose, though something like silver/gold/palladium Echole cables probably costs a lot too. 

Other brands that I would like to try in my system are Echole and Stage III but they are so expensive even lower models and used that it is unlikely unless I get very lucky. I don't pay more than $1k for cables.
Still use original very old Purist Colossus speaker cables and plan on keeping it that way. Sure, Neptune would be better, but again - cost, and it would probably be unwise to do it before upgrading speakers. And since I would like to upgrade to Kharma speakers...not going to happen soon, unfortunately.

There are far less expensive PranaWire cables. $77k is too extravagant for any cables unless they are at a completely different level.

duddley, right. But you need to know when to stop upgrading cables and cords and proceed further with active components upgrades.
I currently have $2.4k retail pair of interconnects between $1k preamp and $2.5k power amp and I think that's about enough. I also have $2k retail power cord on the power amp and $900 retail power cord on the preamp. Another $2.4k retail the same interconnects go from the source to the preamp. This already looks crazy but recently I had to upgrade two pairs of interconnects because the difference I heard was so big.